"The gospel alters not in the least civil affairs, but leaves husband and wife, master and servant, magistrate and subject, every one of them, with the same power and privileges that it found them, neither more nor less; and therefore when the New Testament says, Obey your superiors in all things,' it cannot be thought that it laid any new obligation upon the Christians after their conversion, other than what they were under before: nor that the magistrate has not the same power still over his Christian, as he had over his heathen subjects; so that, where he had power to command, they had still, notwithstanding the liberty and privileges of the gospel, obligations to obey. Now, amongst heathen polities (which cannot be supposed to be instituted by God for the preservation and propagation of true religion), there can be no other end assigned, but the preservation of the meinbers of that society in peace and safety together. This being found to be the end, will give us the rule of civil obedience: for if the end of civil society be civil peace, the immediate obligation of every subject must be to preserve that society or government which was ordained to produce it; and no member of any society can possibly have any obligation of conscience beyond this. So that he who obeys the magistrate to the degree, as not to endanger or disturb the government, under what form of government soever he live, fulfils all the law of God concerning government, i. e. obeys to the utmost, that the magistrate or society can oblige his conscience, which can be supposed to have no other rule set it by God but this.

"The end of the institution being always the measure of the obligations of conscience then upon every subject, [and that end] being to preserve the government, 'tis plain, that where any law made with a penalty, is submitted to, i. e. the penalty is quietly undergone, the government cannot be disturbed or endangered; for whilst the magistrate has power to increase the penalty, even to the loss of life, and the subject submits patiently to the penalty, which he is in conscience obliged to do, the government can never be in danger, nor can the public want active obedience in any case where it hath power to require it under pain of death; for no man can be supposed to refuse his active obedience in a lawful and indifferent thing, when the refusal will cost him his life, and lose all his civil rights at once, for want of performing one civil action; for civil laws have only to do with civil actions.

"This, thus stated, clears a man from that infinite number of sins that otherwise he must unavoidably be guilty of, if all penal laws oblige the conscience farther than this. One thing farther is to be con

sidered, that all human laws are penal; for where the penalty is not expressed, it is by the judge to be proportioned to the consequence and circumstance of the fault. See the practice of the King's Bench. Penalties are so necessary to civil laws, that God found it necessary to annex them even to the civil laws he gave the Jews."-Life of John Locke, by Lord King, vol. i. pp. 114-117.

OWEN.

The following remarks on the danger of misapprehending the true source of all moral obligation, by Dr OWEN, in his answer to PARKER, are worthy to stand along with the above. I believe their proper place would be considerably above it.

"It hath hitherto been the judgment of all who have inquired into these things, that the great concern of the glory of God in the world, the interest of kings and rulers, of all governments whatever, the good and welfare of private persons, lies in nothing more than in preserving conscience from being debauched, in the conducting principles of it; and a keeping up its due respect to the immediate sovereignty of God over it in all things. Neither ever was there a more horrid attempt upon the truth of the gospel, all common morality and the good of mankind, than that which some of late years, or ages have been engaged in, by suggesting in their casuistical writings, such principles for the guidance of the consciences of men, as in sundry particular instances might set them free as to practice, from the direct and immediately influencing authority of God in his word.

"And yet I doubt not, but it may be made evident, that all their principles in conjunction, are scarce of so pernicious a tendency as this one general theorem, that men may lawfully act in the worship of God or otherwise, against the light, dictates, or convictions of their own consciences. Exempt conscience from an absolute, immediate, entire, universal dependance on the authority, will, and judgment of God, according to what conceptions it hath of them, and you disturb the whole harmony of Divine Providence, in the government of the world, and break the first link of that great chain whereon all religion and government in the world do depend. Teach men to be like Naaman the Syrian, to believe only in the God of Israel, and to worship him according to his appointment, by his own choice, and from a sense of duty, yet also to bow in the house of Rimmon, contrary to his light and conviction, out of compliance with his master; or, with the men of Samaria, to fear the Lord, but to worship their idols, --and they will not fail at one time or other rather to seek after rest

in restless atheism, than to live in a perpetual conflict with themselves, or to cherish an everlasting sedition in their own bosoms.”— Pp. 69, 70.

BUNYAN.

“Well, then,” said he, (Cobb, the clerk of the peace, to John Bunyan)," the king commands you that you should not have any private meetings: because it is against his law, and he is ordained of God, therefore you should not have any."-" I told him," says Bunyan," the law has provided two ways of obeying. The one to do that which I on my conscience do believe that I am bound to, actively, and when I cannot obey actively, then I am willing to lie down and to suffer what they shall do to me."-Ivimey's Life of Bunyan, p. 237. 12mo. Lond. 1809.

NORRIS.

Norris of Bemerton, the Platonic philosopher, mystic divine, and sacred poet, an ingenious writer, and a decided high churchman, in his "Charge of Schism against the Separatists," p. 58, teaches, that "Civil penal laws have only a disjunctive obligation, and when they are in full force, leave us at liberty whether we will do what is required, or omit it and suffer, and are equally satisfied either way."The Charge of Schism against the Dissenters, discharged by Simon Browne, p. 11. Lond. 1710.

"There is another way in which governments are dissolved, and that is, when the legislative, or the prince, either of them, act contrary to their trust.

* The reader who wishes to see what can be said against a principle, which is so powerfully supported in the following extracts, and in favour of its opposite, will do well to consult a small, but most elaborate dissertation, in the form of a sermon, entitled, "Passive Obedience, or the Christian Doctrine of not resisting the Supreme Power, proved and vindicated upon the Principles of the Law of Nature, in a discourse preached at the College Chapel, by George Berkeley, M. A., Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin (afterwards Bishop of

"First, The reason why men enter into society, is the preservation of their property; and the end why they choose and authorize a legislative is, that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the members of the society, to limit the power and moderate the dominion of every part and member of the society. For since it can never be supposed to be the will of the society that the legislative should have a power to destroy that, which every one designs to secure, by entering into society, and for which the people submitted themselves to legislators of their own making, whenever the legislators endeavour to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are therefore absolved from any farther obedience, and are left to the common refuge which God hath provided for all men against force and violence. Whensoever, therefore, the legislative shall transgress

Cloyne). Nec vero aut per senatum aut per populum solvi hac lege possimus.'-Cic. frag. de rep. Lond. 1713."-This, without doubt, and beyond comparison, the ablest defence of Passive Obedience and Non-resistance on philosophical principles consistent with revelation, is a curious display of the characteristic extreme acuteness, yet unsoundness of the mind of its singularly gifted and most estimable author-" ingeniosa et sagax hariolatio viri disertissimi." The scriptural argument in favour of these doctrines, is fully stated in Dean Sherlock's "Case of Resistance to the Supreme Powers, stated and resolved according to the Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures.”Lond. 1684. And the argument from the doctrine and practice of the primitive Christians, may be found in Archbishop Usher's tract, entitled, “The Power communicated by God to the Prince, and the Obedience required of the Subject, briefly laid down and confirmed out of the Holy Scriptures, the Testimony of the Primitive Church, the Dictates of Right Reason, and the Opinion of the Wisest among Heathen Writers." Lond. 1688. Few questions have been more thoroughly discussed. A specimen of the advocacy of what we regard as the right side, is presented to the reader, and it is but justice to say, that if that side of it which we consider as untenable, has been disgraced by the impiety of HOBBES and the unprincipled meanness of PARKER-the learning of USHER, the judgment of SANDERSON, the wit of SOUTH, the subtilty and candour of BERKELEY, and the sanctity of KEN, are more than enough to entitle to careful consideration any principle which they entertained. It is wonderful, however, that such men should have maintained such principles-and it is not less so, that men so distinguished for learning and worth, as NEWMAN, and KEBLE, and PUSEY, should seek to revive them. One must regret the misdirection of so much learning and talent-but this is about the amount of the evil. These principles will not now " grow and multiply." The soil of the public mind in this country is too well cultivated to admit of such "briars and thorns," spreading to any dangerous extent.

this fundamental rule of society, and either by ambition, fear, folly, or corruption, endeavour to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other, an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people; by this breach of trust they forfeit the power the people had put into their hands for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the people, who have a right to resume their original liberty, and, by the establishment of a new legislative (such as they shall think fit), to provide for their own safety and security, which is the end for which they are in society.

"What I have said here concerning the legislative in general, holds true also concerning the supreme executor, who, having a double trust put in him, both to have a part in the legislative, and the supreme execution of the law, acts against both, when he goes about to set up his own arbitrary will, as the law of the society. He acts also contrary to his trust, where he either employs the force, treasures, and offices of the society, to corrupt the representatives, and gain them to his purposes; or openly pre-engages the electors, and prescribes to their choice, such whom he has by solicitations, threats, promises, or otherwise, won to his designs; and employs them to bring in such who have promised before-hand what to vote and what to enact. Thus to regulate candidates and electors, and new-model the way of election, what is it but to cut up the government by the roots, and poison the very fountain of public security? For the people having reserved to themselves the choice of their representatives, as a fence of their properties, could do it for no other end but that they might always be freely chosen, and so chosen, freely act and advise, as the necessity of the commonwealth, and the common good should, upon examination, and mature debate, be judged to require. This, those who give their votes before they hear the debate, and have weighed the reasons on all sides, are not capable of doing. To prepare such an assembly as this, and endeavour to set up the declared abettors of his own will, for the true representatives of the people, and the law-makers of the society, is certainly as great a breach of trust, and as perfect a declaration of a design to subvert the government, as is possible to be met with. To which, if one shall add rewards and punishments, visibly employed to the same end, and all the arts of perverted law made use of to take off and destroy all that stand in the way of such a design, and will not comply and consent to betray the liberties of their country, 'twill be past doubt what is doing. What power they ought to have in society, who thus employ it, contrary to the trust which went along with it, in its first institu